It’s the phrase that perhaps saved me from a childhood spent in solitary in my room. I was an adorable kid, a bit shy—but I outgrew that. Looking at pictures last Christmas while I was home, I got a bit nostalgic and brought out the photo albums from the 80s —I was smiling in every picture; literally, EVERY SINGLE ONE. (Well, there was ONE in which I was crying and my mother later told me that she took this picture BECAUSE I was crying, because it rarely happened.) I had that awkward phase from middle-school up until college. A fairly devastating breakup sophomore year threw me into a transformation; I survived that summer a different person—and more attractive. A year later, I started dating, in quantity.
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I am surrounded by beauty, from my office that I work, to my co-workers, my roommates, and my friends.
Beauty.
I like beautiful things and places. I love giving beautiful gifts. Perhaps it’s a social stigma that by default beauty is glamorous, or rather, glamorized. It could even be an extension of validation. If we are perceived as beautiful, then life miraculously becomes simpler, things happen for us and we are ruler of the world! This is all the effect of social conditioning. The controversy of models in magazines and the messages they send to women. Does being in a magazine, all glam, and airbrushed make them powerful? This type of presentation suggests a life that basically a dream. We look at these women and men in these magazines and create a fantasy, a story in which these people have everything they've ever wanted and how? Their physical appearance. A flash of a smile and you get a Bentley. Nice legs! Off to Paris!
It's all a story, there is no magic involved.
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My last boyfriend, which I will refrain from announcing how long ago that way, and I were a sort of Power Couple; that couple that has everything going for them. We were cute and funny and we complimented each other very well.
I called him Beauty. I don't remember exactly why, but it was something that I started calling him from the very beginning. I actually don't even know if he noticed.
Our relationship was short by some standards, long by my own. But that relationship affected me for years. And to some degree still does. He was the one that wanted me, just as I am. That got jealous and cared for me without question. It was a long-distance relationship and I traveled every few weeks six hours to see him. Sometimes, just for a night. He was a beautiful person. His laugh could inspire you to laugh. His smile could melt mountain snow. And he fit, more-so in the crook of my arm than anything else. I scaled mountains; forged rivers; lost myself in New York one weekend with him.
He loved Sex and the City; my last weekend with him was his birthday weekend and I bought him the Sex and the City series companion book (I subsequently bought a book entitled The Peril of Magnificent Love.)
A few nights later, I was home and during a thunderstorm, it ended. We suddenly wanted different things. I never saw him again. He moved to one coast, and I, the other. We spoke sporadically over the next four years. I've said it takes me four years to get over someone I fell “in love with.” Well, this year was year four. So in terms of Beauty—capital B—he was very powerful.
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If you’re a cute kid, you can get away with things.
If you’re a hot adult, you get things. Attention at Saks; crossing velvet ropes without waiting; smiles, maybe even a seat, on the subway; .
Physical beauty has a time limit, or at least a price tag for a great plastic surgeon. But as many can attest, beauty comes in all forms. I live in the city where I am surrounded by beauty: Central Park, the Chrysler Building, the Statue of Liberty, the girl on my subway who wears different color knee socks everyday.
Variety is the basis of beauty.
I think individualism is the magical force that sparks anything beautiful.
Beauty is relative and interpretive.
We each have our own vision of what is beautiful.
But that doesn't mean it should bow in its presence.
We should join beauty. Walk along side it. Gaze up at it. Hold its hand. Breathe it in.
We, ourselves, are powerful too.
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